


The Old Man and the Sea

by AgentCoop



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Actor Alex, Actors, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ash Lynx Lives, Coffee, Conversations, M/M, Quiet, Writer Ash Lynx, Writers, Zine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-07
Updated: 2020-01-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:54:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22148227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgentCoop/pseuds/AgentCoop
Summary: It's been 30 years since the events of Banana Fish unfolded, and Ash has managed to completely separate himself from his past, living as a writer on the shores of California.Now he's written a memoir, and that memoir is being made into a movie, and the young actor playing the great Ash Lynx has asked for an interview.This requires speaking of the past though, and as everyone knows, the past is a delicate thing, full of liquid memories just waiting to unfurl.
Relationships: Alex & Ash Lynx, Ash Lynx & Okumura Eiji, Ash Lynx/Okumura Eiji
Comments: 16
Kudos: 154
Collections: Street Sense Banana Fashion Zine





	The Old Man and the Sea

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the incredible Street Sense Zine. Thank you so much to the awesome mods there for putting out a beautiful zine full of amazing creators!
> 
> It was also written as a collaboration with [Kyy!](twitter.com/kyyhky7)  
> Check out the artwork [HERE](https://twitter.com/Kyyhky7/status/1214670893055647746)  
> Thank you so much for letting me work with you--you're art is so stunning <3

The coffee shop was situated in the small town of Morro Bay, right on the boardwalk and just steps away from the water. It wasn’t Ash’s favorite location, due to the unreasonable number of tourists who shirked the glamor of Hollywood and made for the quiet and still of a small resort town on the water, flocking to _Skippers Beanery,_ like lemmings to a cliff. Still, he ordered his Cafe Americano to go with the smallest curve of a smile, then moved to one of the outdoor seats that was shaded by a large plum-colored umbrella. He tried to relax, tried to breathe in the saltwater smell from the ocean just beyond the wooden slats and think of nothing but the water.

It was early enough in the morning that there were surfers dotting the beach, riding the waves, and Ash pushed his glasses up on his forehead while watching. These days, it was impossible to read anything without them, impossible to see into the distance with them. Age was a fickle thing, but despite its irritating side effects, it was a thing he was proud of achieving. He’d burned so hot when he was younger that sometimes he still woke in the morning and wondered how on earth he’d ever escaped intact.

Thumbing the lid off the cup to let the hot coffee cool, he sank back in the chair, crossed an ankle over his knee, and waited.

It didn’t take long. The kid was punctual, beautifully tanned and delightfully ‘Californian’ looking, despite the fact that Ash knew he’d only been in town a few days, flown in for this particular visit.

“Ah..Mr. Lynx?” he asked, shading his brow with one hand and holding out the other in a respectful display of courtesy. “I’m Alexander. Well..Alex.”

“Mr. Winston,” Ash grunted. He shook the boys hand without standing, or even sitting up from his chair, then waved at him to sit. “I go by Chris Winston here.”

“Oh, gosh, yes. Yes, I’m so sorry, they told me that and I just—”

“You’re fine.” Ash said, eyes narrowing. “It’s not as though I’m in hiding. I just prefer it. Ages better than Lynx, wouldn’t you say?”

Alex smiled a bit at that, then settled into the chair opposite Ash, pulling a small moleskin notebook from his back pocket and flipping it open. “Is it okay?” he asked, clearly still uncomfortable. “If I take notes, that is?”

“It’s my book, being made into a movie about my life story, starring you. Take as many notes as you like.” Reaching for his cup, he blew at the dark liquid a moment before taking that first, initial, skin flaying sip of burning hot liquid. He was already feeling jittery even without the caffeine, as though there were eyes watching him, judging him. He wanted to scream with it, to scratch the skin of his inner forearms as hard as possible, like he still did some nights after waking from black nightmares.

He wanted to clench his fists, bite his lip so hard it bled and will himself back home, back to the small condo that sat nestled in the trees at the base of the hills. It was silent there, in a way that blanketed him in warmth, rather than stifled.

Instead, he took another sip of coffee, trying to ignore the way his leg was starting to subtly bounce.

“Okay. Well...” Alex tapped his pen at the page.

Drumming his fingers at the side of the cup, Ash took a moment to really study the boy. His light brown hair fell across his brow and almost into his eyes, but the wind blew it across his skin, picking up wisps and toying with them before letting them fall back, framing his face. His dark blue eyes glowed with intensity, and Ash smiled at this. They were beautiful, but they were far from ‘Ash Lynx Jade’ and he didn’t envy the kid the hours of makeup and contact lenses that he’d have to put up with. “I heard you just got back from France?” Ash asked, attempting to start some sort of conversation and banish the sickening sensation of anxiety from his gut.

“Oh! Yes, I actually just got back from filming last week. We were in Limousin, shooting an indie film. The countryside was incredible, and it was a wonderful opportunity—”

“You speak French then?”

Alex began to tap the tip of his pen at the notebook, as though suddenly nervous, as though he could taste the change in the air and sense the danger. “I...well, yes. My father is French. My mother is from Chicago. But I learned still, growing up.”

“Me trouvez-vous dangereux?” Ash asked, the French oily on his tongue, thick and poisonous. It had been so long since he’d used any, and yet it came back with ease, as though waiting within him to strike.

Alex pursed his lips, considering very carefully. “No,” he started, slow but confident. “No, not dangerous. Cold maybe. A bit blunt.”

Ash laughed then, a delicious peal of a thing. “Oh you’re a fun one,” he said. “Most are afraid to talk to me. Most read the autobiography and form their opinions and stay far, far away. Phone interviews are common, sometimes Skype. Face to face though, I terrify them. I’m a predator you see—a lynx who’s been left out of his cage for too long and who’s gotten a taste for freedom. They fear that if they corner me, I’ll attack.

“That’s ridiculous. None of it was your fault. None of it was your doing, beyond simple survival.”

Ash cocked his head. “And yet still, I’ve killed men. I’ve held guns, I’ve held poison, I’ve stained my hands red with blood. You don’t think that changes a man?”

Shrugging, Alex picked up his notepad and scribbled a few things out of sight. “I’m sure it does. I’m only suggesting that it isn’t the climax of your life. You’ve been out of the mafia for...mmm thirty years now. I’m willing to bet that other seeds have grown beneath your treacherous facade.”

“Fancy words, for a _model._ ” He flinched as soon as the words escaped, well aware of his own, jaded feelings on the profession. “I apologize,” he corrected. “That wasn’t–”

“They’re yours.”

Ash studied the boy, a smile growing on his face. “So you _did_ read more of my books than just the autobiography.”

“Of course. I’m not a hack. _It troubled him to think that without water, without sunlight, the small seeds of hope might never sprout from underneath that treacherous facade,_ ” Alex quoted, eyes rolled upward as though searching for the words from somewhere within his skull. “I studied your work in college, before I took a leave for an international modeling gig.”

He was beautiful, there was no doubt about it. Not the pale, blond sort of beautiful that made Ash cringe with memory, but an older sort of beauty, calling to mind the sharp jawlines and lithe, dancer-like bodies of movie stars from the 20s. “ _Izumo_ ,” Ash murmured quietly. “You’re quoting _On the Shores of Izumo_.”

“It was always my favorite.”

Taking another sip of coffee and letting the burn spread down the back of his throat, Ash grunted. “Early writing,” he said, with a wave of his hand. “A lovely story, but spattered with incessant purple prose.”

“Of course you’d say that, you’re the writer. You judge yourself more harshly than any critic.”

“Do I?”

Alex shrugged. The squawking call of a seagull rang out overhead and he looked up for a moment, tracking the bird as it swooped down and snatched up an unsuspecting piece of stale biscotti that had fallen to the wooden planks. “Will you tell me about him”

“About who?”

_“Do I scare you?” Ash had asked. They stood, back to back, sweating against one another, heartbeats loud enough to be felt through the floor._

_And he’d looked back. Smiled. It was a small thing then, but it had curved with possibility, despite the danger, despite the unease, despite the terror–_

_It sang of hope._

_“Never.”_

“About... _him_. The boy in the story. About Eiji.”

That anxiety, that unease was coming back, but Ash swallowed it down, forcing a smile to his face. This was planned for, it was anticipated, and no matter what his subconscious beat against him, there was no danger.

“Mostly what happened to him? Okumura Eiji...” he trailed off, picking up the pen again as though about to delve into furious note taking. “I know as much as the general public. He had career back in Japan as a fairly successful photographer. He had gallery shows for a while in the 90s—all over, really. Even here, some in New York, one in Chicago...and then he retired early. Disappearing from the radar.”

“Sounds about right,” Ash confirmed.

“So? Did you ever see him again? Was there ever something...more?”

“Is this pertinent to how you’ll be playing my character in a docudrama about drug smuggling and mafia overlords?”

Alex laughed, then pulled a long leg up, wrapping his arm around his knee. His flannel shirt hung lazily from his shoulders, whispering in movement with the breeze. His jeans were worn, and he wore black converse, laced tight. This sparked something, deep within Ash. It wasn’t warmth, it wasn’t fear, it was just the tennous strand of an old memory, something tied so deeply to his core that he’d never forget.

He still had a pair of red converse that he wore about the condo, trudging around and performing the slew of day to day tedious chores. He loved the monotony of it. The slow, uninspired move of his body through the living room, and then the kitchen, and onto the bedroom.

“I’m sorry,” Alex grinned, jolting Ash from his reverie. “Let me start from the beginning. Can I ask you about the first night you held Banana Fish in your hand?”

They spoke for hours, the morning sun moving in its crescent shaped axis until it was directly overhead, rays hitting the wet footsteps on the boardwalk and claiming them with a sizzle of heat. Ash didn’t consider it an interview so much as an opening of old wounds, but he pushed through, determined to help in any way he could. He delivered to Alex every speck of information he could remember, every emotion that wracked his body as a teenager, and every decision that, at the time, felt as though it might shake the weight of the world.

It was past noon when they finished, Ash’s coffee long gone, the cup only containing the very dregs of the grounds. He stood when shaking Alex’s hand this time—an exchange between two adults.

And then Alex was gone—walking the wooden planking of the boardwalk and disappearing behind the rush of people who’d begun swarming the beach.

Ash stood for a moment, breathing in that salt air again—this time, tinged with the burnt sugar smell of the cotton candy stand just down the walk. There was a part of the boardwalk across from him that extended out a little more towards the ocean, and he walked over leaning on the rail and looking out at the sparkling ocean waves.

It took a long minute or two before there was a whisper of motion beside him and then someone else leaned on the rail, causing it to creak and sway.

“You’ll break the boardwalk,” Ash complained, turning and leaning his hip against the rail.

Eiji just looked at him and smiled.

Unlike Ash, who still maintained the desperate glow of his youth, Eiji had weathered a bit more. His hair sparkled with grey, his eyes had grown muddy, and his face was lined, deep grooves that cut into his skin.

This was Ash’s favorite part of him though—he loved to trace the lines of his cheeks, of his eyes, of his forehead. They were lines of happiness, of laughter, and they told a story of a life well lived.

“He seems like a good kid,” Eiji said, studying Ash under heavy lids.

“Did you listen in on the entire thing, or were you actually working, like you told me you’d be?” Ash smiled though, the anxiety of his morning already fading to a distant memory.

“Listening of course! He is very sweet. He picked a wonderful book of yours as his favorite. I believe it was one about a cunning young man, beautiful and smart and just overall wonderful in every sense of the word.”

“Oh?” Ash asked. “Did he now? I seem to recall he enjoyed the book about a whiny little foreigner who wouldn’t stop following the gorgeous hero of the story around.”

Eiji laughed at that, a full-bellied thing, and cocked his head, regarding Ash with intensity. “He does seem a little too nice to be playing _you_ on the screen.”

“A little,” Ash said with a grin. He threaded his fingers through Eiji’s. “He’s everything I wanted to be,” he whispered.

It was so soft it was almost carried off completely by the breeze, but Eiji squeezed his hand, acknowledging. “There is no room for past regret,” he murmured, “because to me? You are already everything.”

And Ash nodded, the breeze picking up and ruffling his hair, and the seagulls crying out above them, and the ocean roaring its power for all to bear witness to.

He nodded because this, like so many of Eiji’s quiet statements, was _true._


End file.
